


a flame for always

by IndianSummer13



Series: hearts aflame [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Family, Feels, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndianSummer13/pseuds/IndianSummer13
Summary: “Do you want to give him your name?” she asks. She’s been wanting to tell him she’s okay with it if that’s what he wants - to keep the family tradition: Forsythe Pendleton Jones IV.“No.”He takes her hands in each of his and kisses her finger tips before folding them in against his chest. Even after all this time, he still does that: keeps them safe. Keepshersafe.“He doesn’t deserve to be tied down with that.”“Jug…” She knows he knows what she means.“He’s our fresh start Betts,” Jughead whispers. “His name should reflect that.”.Coda to My World's On Fire (and no one can save me but you)





	a flame for always

**Author's Note:**

> This coda picks up where the final chapter of My World's On Fire ended. It isn't essential that you read that story first, but it might help in explaining a couple of things.

The apartment feels different.

In reality, it’s the same as it’s always been: walls painted a bright magnolia; dark grey couch facing away from the door and towards the tv; air conditioning unit poking out from the window; bedroom doors left ajar.

It is, also, the same as when they’d left it two days prior. Betty was pregnant then.

She isn’t now.

Jughead follows in behind her, carrying their son in his carseat - which he sets down on the coffee table (and then must think better of it and moves it to the floor) His fingers release the safety straps but he leaves the sleeping baby where he is, all content and snug beneath a pristine white blanket they’d bought together a few weeks before he’d arrived.

He doesn’t yet have a name. For now, he’s _little guy_ (Jughead’s words, not hers, though watching him hold their son whilst saying them makes her feel so much all at once that she wonders how she hasn’t combusted yet)

“You were brilliant Betts,” he tells her softly. He’s said it each day: the first time after the doctor had given her some stitches and her face had flamed, embarrassed at the blood-soaked bed sheets. He’d said it again as the baby had settled to sleep in his tiny crib-on-wheels and Jughead had perched on the edge of the redressed bed, fingers laced with her own and his thumb stroking her skin.

There’s such awe in his voice as he tells her those words yet again that she’s starting to believe it.

“Thank you,” she whispers softly, crossing to where he is. His arms wrap around her and instinctively, she buries her head into his chest.

“For what?” he asks.

“Saying those words. Holding my hand. Being here.” She can’t even fathom how she’d have done any of it without him. “All of it.”

She feels his lips press a kiss to her crown and her eyes close. She’s exhausted and sore and still feels like she smells of the hospital’s cleaning fluid.

“You want to take a shower?” Jughead asks, like he knows exactly what’s running through her mind. She does, but she doesn’t want to leave this room and their son and him. “We’ll be fine,” he adds.

Her hair is pulled up into a messy bun of sorts and his fingers smooth the strands backwards towards where the rest of them are gathered in a black elastic. He kisses her forehead and she feels her stomach flutter at the gentleness of it all.

“Okay,” she agrees. “I’ll be quick.”

In the bathroom, she turns on the water and waits until the steam fogs up the mirror before removing her clothes. The comfort of her maternity leggings will be difficult to give up, Betty thinks, as she tosses them onto the floor. Her stomach is still rounded - not the size it had been when she’d entered the hospital, but comparable to a semi-deflated balloon - and her breasts (those _are_ bigger) are painful and hard. She steps into the shower feeling somewhat okay with both of these things, and yet, inexplicably, as she’s shampooing her hair, she cries.

For a timeless stretch, she stands under the steady spray of the shower as the tears combine with the jets of water and her throat aches. She doesn’t know why. She’s happy - _more_ than happy: _so much more_ than happy that she doesn’t think there’s a word for it. Her hands scrub at her face, at her hair, at her arms with their faded red and white scars until the rest of her skin is red too and there are no more tears.

She daren’t look down as she steps onto the little fluffy bath mat, afraid of what she might see, and quickly wraps a towel around herself. She’s not careful enough when tucking the edge in and her breasts leak onto the cotton.

She cries again.

Jughead has made tea when she steps into the living room. There are two steaming mugs of it waiting at the counter and rather than handing her one straight away, he takes in whatever expression must be on her face and says, gently,

“C’m here.”

“I don’t know why I’m crying Jug,” she sniffs, clutching at his t-shirt. It smells mildly of the hospital but more of _him_ , and she scrunches the material in her fists as she inhales.

“You just had a baby,” he soothes. “ _Our_ baby. You’re allowed to do whatever you want.”

“I _am_ happy. More than happy, I just…”

Exhaling, he holds her tighter. “I know.”

He holds her there long after the mugs of tea grow cold, his lips planting kisses on her crown and her forehead and then, eventually, her mouth. He only pulls away when their son begins to cry.

  
  
  
  


Betty has lost any sense of time. She crawls into bed beside Jughead while it’s not even dark outside but she’s completely and utterly exhausted. She’s still sore, her breasts especially so, and as ever, Jughead is careful when he inches across the space between them in order to tug her closer. Her fingers stroke upwards along his jaw and reach a stop either side of his face against his cheekbones.

“Do you want to give him your name?” she asks. She’s been wanting to tell him she’s okay with it if that’s what he wants - to keep the family tradition: Forsythe Pendleton Jones IV.

“No.”

He takes her hands in each of his and kisses her finger tips before folding them in against his chest. Even after all this time, he still does that: keeps them safe. Keeps _her_ safe.

“He doesn’t deserve to be tied down with that.”

“ _Jug_ …” She knows he knows what she means.

“He’s our fresh start Betts,” Jughead whispers. “His name should reflect that.”  

The following day, they decide on Charlie. His name means, simply, _free_.

  
  
  
  


Betty’s parents arrive with so many gifts that she’s not sure there’ll be room enough in the apartment even to move, let alone sit down. They receive muslin squares and way too many tiny sleepsuits and a contraption for extracting breast milk that horrifies Betty (and, from the expression he wears, Jughead too) Still, she thanks them after each one, and Jughead does too, despite the fact she can see he’s uncomfortable at being gifted with so many items.

Her mom mentions marriage twice: the first time phrased so casually that anyone not fully-versed in Alice Cooper’s veiled _actual meanings_ might not notice. The second time, she’s not so delicate about it.

“So, Jug Head.” There are two very distinctly separate syllables to his name, Betty notes. She fights the wince and when his hand rubs gently at her back to let her know it’s okay, she decides to make sure he knows every single day that he’s _enough_ . _More_ than enough. “My grandson has your last name.”

Despite it not being a question, he answers anyway. “Yes Mrs Cooper.”

“But not Betty.”

“Mom -”

“- I won’t have secrets,” she interjects. Her voice is flat and yet somehow, the words cut. “Not any more. If he has no intention of marrying you, I at least want to know that.”

At the base of her spine, she can feel Jughead’s fingers tense. They haven’t really talked about it before. They have a son and they love each other and really, that’s all Betty needs. A ring on her finger doesn’t change that, nor does her last name.

Thankfully, her dad changes the subject and they don’t have to answer.

“I’ve thought about it,” Jughead tells her in bed that night once her parents have left for Riverdale and Charlie has settled to sleep. “Marrying you.”

“I don’t need it Jug,” she replies honestly.

“But…” he seems to think for a moment as she lays her head on his chest. “Maybe one day we might decide…”

“Yeah,” she smiles.

“I thought so much about Charlie’s name, I wasn’t thinking about yours. But uh...if you’d like it,” He swallows audibly and Betty lifts her head to look at him in the pale silvery light of the moon. “Someday, I’d like you to have it too.”

She kisses him. Sinks her lips against his and wraps her arms so tightly around his neck that there isn’t a millimeter of space between them.

“I’d like that,” she whispers against his mouth. “Some day.”

  
  
  
  


Betty has a plain white-gold band on her finger the day she gives birth to their daughter. On the tiny chart attached to the crib she’s been allocated to sleep in, is the name Ava Jones. She catches Jughead’s smile as he traces the cursive handwriting with his index finger, his own plain band glinting in the sunlight streaming through the hospital window. They match now: her, Jughead, Charlie and Ava.

She hadn’t _needed_ to be a Jones. (But God, the feeling of actually being one - of being Jughead’s wife - is something indescribable)

They take their daughter home in the same carseat they’d carried Charlie in almost three years ago, only this time, it’s not the apartment in Red Hook where they begin life as a family of four. Jughead pulls the car into the driveway of their house in Marine Park and then helps her out, right hand on her back protectively, left hand carrying their baby girl.

“Mommy!” Charlie squeals as they enter, abandoning his legos and an equally excited Jellybean for a hug that ends up with him sitting a top of her hip.

“Careful Betts,” Jughead warns, as she fights the wince of pain, but ruffles their son’s hair anyway. “Hey little guy.”

“Daddy,” he protests. “The baby’s here. You said I’m a big guy now.”

Betty raises an eyebrow at him and he acquiesces. “I did say that.”

“Hi Ava,” Jellybean coos, stroking the baby’s dark blonde sweep of hair. “She’s beautiful you guys. Jug, I can’t believe you make such cute babies.”

She feels his fingers splay further across her back as he says, “It’s all Betty.”

It isn’t of course, but the rub of his thumb over her spine stops her voicing the fact out loud.

“Okay big guy,” he tells Charlie. “We need to be careful with your mom. You can come here instead.”

Jughead extracts him without protest and Betty’s chest feels so full that she doesn’t know what to say. She reaches for his hand and squeezes, and he must know what she means because he manages a low,

“Me too baby.”

Later, in a rare moment alone, she whispers aloud to Polly, “I’m sorry you didn’t get your family Pol.”

She hopes though, that, maybe, in heaven, she can share in this.

  
  
  
  


The day Betty realises that _she_ deserves Jughead is the same day she’s sick with the flu. He takes the day off of work and she hears him say,

“Go find the bow you want baby; Mommy’s sick so I’ll braid your hair today.”

Jughead, whose mom left with his little sister before he was old enough even to attempt to weave three strands of dark blonde waves together in imitation. Jughead, who, in the middle of making chicken soup, says, “Charlie, can you lay the table for lunch please?” despite the fact that he grew up eating tv dinners on his lap in front of a set with intermittent signal. Jughead, who, after watching a ballet class and a little league game, creeps quietly into their bedroom having visited the grocery store so she won’t have to get out of bed to bake cupcakes for their children’s school bake sale on Monday, and tells her,

“You’re amazing Betts.”

Her nose is red and her hair is mussed and she’s alternating between sweating and shivering, and right now, she feels anything _but_ amazing.

“You do so much for them. For _us_.”

“You deserve it,” she replies in a rather unattractive croak.

 

(He kisses her anyway)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always HUGELY appreciated.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr at @itsindiansummer13


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